Published in November 9th, 2011
This is the latest in a series of studies to show that aging can be manipulated. If scientists were able to do for humans what these Mayo Clinic researchers did for mice, many more people would be in much better health at older ages. Now, why isn’t everyone who cares about the cost of health [...]
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Published in September 20th, 2011
Aaron Saenz at Singularity Hub writes a thoughtful review of 100+: What would you do with another 75 years on this Earth? Not as a pain wracked wizened elder in a nursing home, but as a vibrant super-centenarian with the energy of a 30 year old? Sonia Arrison is here to tell you it’s not [...]
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Published in July 28th, 2010
Here’s the first part of my column on the recent Congressional investigation into the genomcs industry: The genomics industry, which provides reports about disease risk, ancestry, and drug reactions based on one’s DNA, came under fire last week as a Congressional Committee held hearings and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released an unscientific “study” of [...]
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Published in July 22nd, 2010
It’s been a tough week for the personal genomics testing marketplace. First there were two long days of FDA meetings, and then today an Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings where the GAO announced the results of a “sting” operation into direct to consumer (DTC) genomics companies. Below is the (brutal) GAO video. As Daniel [...]
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Published in July 9th, 2010
Was a super-interesting discussion. Recordings of the sessions are up on the web already if you missed them.
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Published in April 29th, 2010
During his homily this Easter, Pope Benedict argued that medical science, in trying to defeat death, is leading humanity toward likely condemnation. It’s a position at odds with the value of life, one that the Church will likely revise years from now, replaying the institution’s embarrassment over censoring Galileo. “Let us reflect for a moment,” [...]
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Published in April 13th, 2010
A gene that controls racism appears to exist. However, if you disable it, you get something called Williams syndrome, a disorder where people have problems identifying others with malevolent intentions. Here’s the story, which cites research from Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg of the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
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Published in April 7th, 2010
In his Easter homily, Pope Benedict argues that attempting to prolong life is not a goal worthy of our efforts. Here’s how he put it: Modern medical science strives, if not exactly to exclude death, at least to eliminate as many as possible of its causes, to postpone it further and further, to prolong life [...]
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Published in February 4th, 2010
Here’s a rather disturbing article published by CNN today. Apparently, many “states mandate that newborns be tested for anywhere between 28 and 54 different conditions, and the DNA samples are stored in state labs for anywhere from three months to indefinitely, depending on the state.” I live in California and we did have our baby [...]
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Published in December 3rd, 2009
From the NYT: “The National Institutes of Health said Wednesday that it had approved 13 new human embryonic stem cell lines for use by federally financed researchers, with 96 more under review.” and “Researchers’ interest in human embryonic stem cells has abated since the discovery in 2007 by the Japanese biologist Dr. Shinya Yamanaka that [...]
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Published in November 6th, 2009
Another innovative idea from Ray Kurzweil. He proposes, “a collaborative technology incubator between Israel and Palestine.” According to reports, the proposal was widely met with enthusiasm and support in both public and private sessions. Would it work? Maybe, and it probably wouldn’t hurt. It would be nice to see human energy in that part of [...]
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Published in November 5th, 2009
What a weird story. Brings to light the problems that can occur if we start to think that genes explain everything. From the New Scientist: “A judge’s decision to reduce a killer’s sentence because he has genetic mutations linked to violence raises a thorny question – can your genes ever absolve you of responsibility for [...]
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Published in October 7th, 2009
I mentioned this on Twitter yesterday, but I thought I would also blog about this WSJ story since they have a nice graphic showing how telomeres work. One of the three winners of the Nobel prize, Elizabeth Blackburn, is local to me and I have met with her to discuss her work. She is not [...]
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Published in August 14th, 2009
“We’re at the beginning of an unmanned revolution.” That’s what Gary Kessler, who oversees unmanned aviation programs for the US Navy and Marines, told the AFP. According to the article, “Robots or “unmanned systems” are now deployed by the thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, spying from the sky for hours on end, searching for booby-traps [...]
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Published in July 3rd, 2009
The below text is from a speech given by Hawking at TED in 2008. He expects that humans will be able to repair and alter themselves, which will create new political issues. That just happens to be the topic of a book I am working on at the moment, so nice to see Hawking bringing [...]
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Published in May 13th, 2009
Interesting op-ed from the LAT by Marion Roach. Most relevant graph: “When he campaigned, Obama said he supported the “therapeutic cloning of stem cells.” But as president, he has already traded that position for one that some see as more politically realistic. Under the compromise plan, the president proposed that federal dollars be allowed to [...]
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Published in May 6th, 2009
Here’s an informative article from h+ magazine on how the FDA currently argues that culturing adult stem cells amounts to the creation of a new drug. This of course would mean long time lags for getting stem cell procedures approved, which has prompted the creation of at least two groups: the American Stem Cell Therapy [...]
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Published in April 9th, 2009
From NewScientist: “SPERM should be subject to the same product liability laws as car brakes, according to a US judge who has given a teenager with severe learning disabilities the go-ahead to sue the sperm bank that provided her with a biological father. Brittany Donovan, now 13 years old, was born with fragile X syndrome, [...]
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Published in March 24th, 2009
My friend RU Sirius is the editor for this new magazine, and the website just went live. It’s a great collection of tech, science, and cultural trends that are changing humans and the world. And, if you are interested, you can see one of my articles in the inaugural issue.
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Published in March 13th, 2009
And guess what? One of them happens to be the topic of the book I am currently writing.
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